Country singer-songwriter Brett James was killed in a plane crash in North Carolina on Thursday.
James, 57, was the songwriter behind some of the genre’s biggest hits, including Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel.”
James wasn’t very active on social media, but one of his final Instagram posts was of himself celebrating Father’s Day with his wife and loved ones on June 16.
“Such an amazing Father’s Day!!” he wrote in the caption, next to himself with his wife, Sandra Cornelius, and five young people who look like they range in age from teens to young adults.
According to Hello!, James and his wife shared three sons and a daughter.
James lived in Nashville, Tennessee, with his family, and he mainly stayed under the radar. Not much is publicly known about his personal life.
A June 10 photo with no caption shows James smiling on a beach with his wife, both wearing sunglasses and clad in bathing suits.
“So much fun with my love in the Bahamas,” he captioned the June selfie.
A video he posted that same day shows him smiling while playing golf.
“The best cause ever with the best people ever!!!! Thanks to the Rahm and to St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Lucky shot on 17 at Sawgrass,” he wrote, referring to a golf course at Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.
James was one of three people aboard a single-engine Cirrus SR22T aircraft that departed from John C. Tune Airport in Nashville.
WTVF reported that the aircraft crashed in an open field near Iotla Valley Elementary School in Franklin, NC. The 2016 SR22T aircraft was registered to James, under his real name, Brett Cornelius, out of Brentwood, Tenn., according to flight records.
All three occupants inside the plane were killed, and the identities of the other two victims has not been disclosed. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
Born in Columbia, Missouri, in 1968, James attended medical school before dropping out to pursue music. He became one of the most renowned country music songwriters of the 2000s and early 2010s.
His hits also included Taylor Swift’s “A Perfectly Good Heart,” Brantley Gilbert’s “Bottoms Up” and Rascal Flatts’ “Summer Nights.”
In 2020, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
That same year, James debuted his EP, “I Am Now.”
“I turned 50 last year, and I had one of those birthday epiphanies. I thought, ‘I’d been writing songs for other artists for a long time, and I wanted to re-evaluate things,’” James told Songwriter Universe. “I hadn’t put out any music of my own in around 25 years. … I got inspired to do that without thinking about genre or trying to write radio hits. I know what my most natural voice is, and that was my only preconceived take on things.”
“I’m kind of a natural soul singer. I started writing it and let creativity lead the way. I took time off from my day job as a working songwriter, and I wrote about 11 songs in two weeks,” he explained. “I had as much fun in those two weeks than I’ve ever had writing songs.”
